SMALL TRACK HAS CHASE DRIVERS TIGHT

Going into the Chase for the Championship, contenders knew there would be two critical Sundays in the 10-race playoffs. The first was at NASCAR's biggest track on Oct. 3; the second is today, at the smallest track on the Nextel Cup tour.

Racing at Martinsville Speedway, only .526 of a mile with 12-degree banking, is as monstrous a crapshoot in its own way as restrictor-plate racing at Talladega Superspeedway, 2.66 miles with 33-degree banking.

"This one is definitely a wild card," points leader Kurt Busch said going into the Subway 500 here, "and is as large as Talladega."

Sheet-metal shoving matches almost are obligatory here, with so little room for 43 cars on the little paper clip-shaped track that's really more like two small dragstrips connected by horseshoe turns.

"Sometimes you've got to use your front bumper, or your rear bumper, or your door," said pole-sitter Ryan Newman, who's ninth in the Chase but is bent on making up points from his optimal starting spot. Only four races remain after today.

This quaint and rustic place, opened in 1947, is NASCAR's longest-running venue and Newman didn't want to disparage it.

"I won't say I like it," Newman said. "I tolerate it because it's what we do [race on a wide variety of track configurations], but I'd much rather go to a place like Charlotte or Michigan or Atlanta [all intermediate size tracks] and get some real racing done."

Because the track has recently been resurfaced, Newman's qualifying speed was a track record though a mere 97.043 mph, barely half as fast as his pole-winning speed last week at Charlotte, 188.877 mph.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., second to Busch in the standings by only 24 points, may be in the most comfortable, or rather, least uncomfortable, position today.

Earnhardt will start third, and has recorded five consecutive top-five finishes at Martinsville over the last three years. Still, he's prepared for the same old sort of bump and grind that is to be endured here.

Repaving usually makes for a one-groove track until tire rubber gets ground into the higher lanes, but, "We'll probably have a second groove more forcefully than willingly," Earnhardt said. "I'm a little bit worried about that. I see a lot of tire debris and stuff up on top of the racetrack."

All in all, though, "that's why the fans come to Martinsville," said Busch, who'll start seventh, "because the speeds are so tight and the racing is so tight. It's close quarters all the time."

Busch is a prime example of how unpredictable a driver's day can be here. When he won here, in 2002, he came all the way from a 36th-place start. But otherwise, he's been knocked around so roughly here that his career average finish at Martinsville is 24.25, worst of all 10 Chase drivers.

So, at the end of today, every Chase driver wants exactly what he wanted at Talladega three weeks ago: just to get out of here with his car in one piece, and without his title hopes devastated in a single event.